1 in 3 US adults aged 40-59 years has high blood pressure (hypertension); among those over 60 years of age the prevalence is over two-thirds, 67%.[1] High blood pressure is a well known risk factor for cardiovascular disease; the leading cause of death worldwide.[1, 2] As two-thirds of sudden cardiac deaths occur in clinically healthy individuals [2], novel indicators of early recognition of adverse cardiometabolic risk in disease-free adults are clearly needed. It has been demonstrated that healthy disease-free adults with high-normal blood pressure (aka pre-hypertension, defined as 120-139/80-89 mmHg) have an adverse cardiometabolic risk profile.[2]

The prevalence of high-normal blood pressure in disease-free US adults is 36.3%; it is especially common in people with overweight/obesity, enlarged waist lines, and elevated glucose, insulin, hemoglobin A1c (glycated glucose), C-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker), and triglycerides (blood fats).[2]

If you are following the anti-aging news, you’ve heard about the supposed benefits of chronic calorie restriction for increasing longevity. These claims are based on research done in various species such as flies, worms and mice.

Here I will explain that chronic calorie restriction makes it impossible to implement and reap the health benefits of an active lifestyle with regular exercise, and causes severe health consequences for humans.

While animal studies can and do shed light on what’s going on at mechanistic level, we have to be very careful and resist the temptation to extrapolate results from animal experiments to humans.

Here I will make the case that chronic calorie restriction actually counteracts the prospects of a healthy vital long life.